Design Thinking

04/05/2013

The following is an e-mail news note that I received from Emily's organization yesterday. I can't wait to see this film!

April 4, 2013

Dear friends,

This Saturday, If You Build It, a full-length documentary film about our Studio Hprogram in Bertie County, NC, will premiere at the Full Frame film festival in Raleigh!

We are humbled and honored to have worked with executive producer Neal Baer (of Law and Order: SVU, ER, and more) and filmmakers Patrick Creadon and Christine O'Malley (previous documentaries include Wordplay and I.O.U.S.A) over the past three years to tell the story of Studio H, our students, and the educational and community architecture work we lived and breathed in Bertie County. We will be attending the premiere on Saturday along with our students from Bertie County, mayors, leaders, and community collaborators who helped to make the project possible. Our deepest gratitude goes out to everyone involved in the making of the film, the re-telling of our story, and the stories of our students' journeys and transformations throughout the school year.

Tickets for the premiere at the Full Frame festival are sold out, however the film will be screened in other venues soon. If you are interested screening the film at your school, organization, or venue, please drop us a note and we will connect you to the filmmakers.

From the Full Frame film festival website:

If You Build It: "Designers Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller bring their radical and innovative educational program to Bertie County, North Carolina, transforming people and place over the course of a turbulent and inspiring year. Each season brings a new set of challenges, both prescribed and unexpected, and the resourceful instructors (and their industrious students) must apply the principles of their curriculum—design, build, transform—to their lives as well as to their projects. Earnest, determined, and rousing, the film and its subjects, raise questions of self-reliance, citizenship, and community-building in its most literal interpretation."

We hope that through this film, we can continue to tell our story and inspire many more projects like Studio H around the country. Last year, we moved our Studio H operations to REALM Charter School in Berkeley, CA, where we continue to build community architecture projects with students. This film is a reminder of where we have come from and how much more work we have to do. Thank you to all of you who have supported us so wholeheartedly along the way.

02/15/2013

This is my seventh mind map created using software. Yes, that's a disclaimer. I built this one to reinforce my own learning. Dan spends Part One of the book laying out the groundwork for those who need to be convinced that we are all in sales. I'm convinced so I did not include Part One in the map.

The map as you see it is as far as I've got. Digital mind maps allow one to hide topic elaboration. I'll probably go back and add more explanation. Again, this is for my own learning, I'm not trying to review or teach upon Dan's book.

I am presently using a trial version of this software and have not committed to purchasing it. But I do sort of like the idea of inserting a printed mind map inside books read.

I also created a mind map to assist in week planning and one for a writing project. I must say it's a bit addicting.

08/14/2012

In order to pass the first grade of your platform, reason-for-being-in-business, point-of-view and or stance, you must have a solid elevator speech. In order to graduate you must embrace collaborative conflict.

07/23/2012

David Kelley is founder and chairman of the design firm IDEO. With the exception of Emily Pilloton's work, I cannot think of one company in the world I'd rather sweep their floors for free just to be around its David Kelley-inspired design thinking culture.

We're all well aware of how corporate America and school beat the creativity out of its dwellers. David talks about Albert Bandura's work and how he views it as a solution to help people regain their creative confidence.

07/13/2012

I just finished reading Tony Wagner's book Creating Innovators, for the second time. This video is an excellent segue into Creating Innovators. Tony concludes this talk by saying:

"...I as a teacher and as a mentor think much much more about where and how I am encouraging the play, passion and purpose in everything that I do with young people."

In the spirit of encouragement and inspiration...that leaves a mark!

I will review Creating Innovators at Cultivating Awe soon but here are three quick first impressions:

I had been writing a post over the last couple of months to begin calling kids and young adults pursuing education explorers instead of students. Tony's book clarified my thinking and was the impetus I needed to pull the trigger. If young people are not embracing the verb explore and the noun explorer every single day, they risk traveling the road of mediocrity and miss the one to becoming an innovator.

A person need not invent search engine algorithms to be an innovator. If she explores, applies, fails or succeeds and learns about stuff that improves her world, she is an innovator. If she improves someone else's life, she's a global innovator. The advice that Tony gives is for anyone who wants to improve his world or the world around him.

When it comes to Design Thinking, I am not a fair-weather follower. It's not a fad, gimmick or management fix. It's a way of life that has limitless implications especially when used in the pursuit and application of knowledge. It's a pillar of Standing Out in a Sea of Sameness. To learn about Standford's Bing Nursery School and how they wish to incorporate Design Thinking into their program is for me, worth the price of this book.

07/01/2012

Pretend that you're a football or basketball coach. Now pretend that you have your opponent's written game plan for the next contest. Please temporarily suspend the ethical dilemmas surrounding this recent coup. Do you think this game plan might give you an edge? Might it help your team succeed?

The poor ethics behind this example might over-shadow the teaching lesson, but I'm going to leave it and consider it priming for the pump.

Two of the greatest lessons that I ever learned as a manager, came by way of acquired game plans. And there was nothing unethical about it.

In order to become a better interviewer I studied how Richard N. Bolles taught people to become better interviewees in his book What Color is Your Parachute?

In order to better understand the Millennial generation, I studied how Penelope Trunk taught Millennials to deal with managers like me.

Tony Wagner recently publishedCreating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World. Do you see the pattern here? Do you see the potential game plan? Here's someone teaching parents and educators how to help you!

Tony discusses why he wrote the book here (click on the video titled Intro Page XVII)*. Notice how right up front Tony talks about innovation in any type of job. Often innovation gets penned in with the high tech industry, but it permeates every learning opportunity, school, job and industry...or it should. It even has the potential to break through in politics, as evidenced by President Obama's presidential campaign.

At this point I cannot stress enough the importance of viewing innovation as a way of enhancing your life. It dovetails into my thoughts on design thinking at Standing Out in a Sea of Sameness. Once I finish reading this book I'll write a review and expand on that.

*I must say it's a little annoying that videos are not permitted to be shared.

06/16/2012

James Luther, principal designer for the branch of design firm frog, located in Milan, covers a handful of design basics that begin with the letter E. While James talks to designers about the building blocks of their profession, it occured to me that they also apply to students attempting to stand out.* Listen to James and then please read on:

Empathy - Place yourself in the storyteller's shoes. Be resepectful of their time, send a thank-you note and stay in touch.

Explorer - Perhaps better terminology than student? I think so. You are, with intent, going out into the world in search of ways to improve your life.

Emotion - James: "motivating to think with the same passion that we do." When an explorer with a passionate desire to learn, encounters people on her research journey, these folks will "catch" what she has. Providing that is, her passion emenates with empathy and respect.

Empower - James: "trying to get people to take charge of the most fundamental aspect of their lives." To the explorer this is: Do not let education happen to you. Take control and self-direct your efforts. Most especially if you are in a traditional college where school has a way of happening to you. Build a network of people who are in your field of study. Get out and do informational interviews. Be the designer of your own story.

Exquisite - James: "striving for perfection and creating things of beauty." Your body of work is your overall effort to discover your interests and passion, learn about them and how they tie into a career path, and learn from those on the road ahead of you. Apply accordingly.

Evolve - Explorers must be in constant pursuit of the best tools and methodolgies to enhance their journey. Use design thinking as the fuel to power your tools and methodologies.

Entertain - James: "we have to be captivating to tell our story." Thirty years in business tells me that when a young person approaches me with a passionate desire to learn, they become captivating without even telling me their whole story - yet.

Evangelists - As an introvert, I find this to be difficult...at first. The more passionate your quest, the easier it becomes.

*I created Standing Out in a Sea of Sameness with high school and college students in mind. That was prior to dialing in on the unschooling movement. I think of a student (explorer) as an active learner attempting to enhance their life. I think of those who visit Standing Out in a Sea of Sameness as explorers trying to get an edge on others.

03/07/2012

Over a decade ago, the Stanford University School of Engineering, one of the most highly acclaimed and prestigious university programs in America, recognized that students needed an advantage in the business place. So they created the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP). It is the entrepreneurship center of the Engineering program. It strives to develop and instill the entrepreneurship skills needed to use innovation in order to solve real world problems. STVP's words more or less. I think it helps students get real with what it takes to thrive beyond the books.

In addition to teaching a class on creativity and innovation, Tina Seelig has been the executive director of STVP for over ten years. An amalgamation of life as a teacher, entrepreneur, author, scientist and kid-on-her-own trying to make it, placed Tina in the cross-hairs of writing What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20, which was based on a series of talks she began giving in 2006.

Professor Seelig states the book's goal is to provide a new lens to view obstacles encountered everyday while charting a course to the future. She goes on to use a bevy of anecdotes to support each chapter's lessons.*

Here's the thing that absolutely screams at me about this book, Stanford University and folks like Tina and those who endorsed this book, understand that in the fields of at the very least; health, technology, engineering and the environment, the typical four-year degree isn't getting it done. Students need an edge. And that's what Tina begins to address in What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20.

Here's the second thing that screams at me, students should not wait until they're in college to begin using these ideas. For instance, let's take a quick look at Tina's definition of entrepreneurship:

An entrepreneur is someone who is always on the lookout for problems that can be turned into opportunities and finds creative ways to leverage limited resources to reach their goals.

Couldn't this mindset be used by students and their parents to help identify tentative educational and career pathways...while still in middle school?

The third thing that I noticed, be it more subtle, is this book screams of design thinking without ever mentioning the ever popular buzz word - I really thought that was cool!

My last observation about Tina's work here didn't necessarily scream at me as much as it caused me to wince and double over in pain. Tina recounts a family friend whom she very much admired, totally dissing her when, as a fourteen year old, she went to him for advice. One of the most precious moments in life is when a youngster approaches an adult for advice. While I would like to see more kids take the initiative like Tina did, we as adults, need to seize and take advantage of these priceless teaching moments when they occur.

What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 should be required reading for every high schooler in the country. And also for every parent who thinks their kids might need an edge in both post-secondary education and their careers.

05/29/2011

Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller's first school year of Studio H is nearing an end. Studio H is a high school design/build curriculum for rural community benefit. The one-year program is offered to Junior-year students of the Bertie County school district in North Carolina. Emily and Matt's students wrote a short end-of-the-year essay describing their experience and what they got out of it.

What I love about Studio H is not only is it about true design/build, it's also about design thinking and sensibility - which is one of the three foundational pillars of Standing out in a Sea of Sameness. Design thinking is a skill that has the capacity to transcend the thinking up, building, or the making stuff look better part of design. It is a process in which to approach, engage and navigate education, work and life.

In their opening paragraph, six out of the ten students mentioned that the lessons they learned in Emily and Matt's class went beyond classis design/build and will help them in other areas of life. All of the students mentioned it one way or another as well, but for these six, it was top of the mind awareness.

The following are strong learning themes that students gleaned from Studio H:

presentation skills

working with others

improving confidence

working with tools

working with their hands

If you are in high school or college now, unless you are majoring in design, the opportunity of getting involved with a curriculum like Studio H is slim. But learning the design thinking part is totally within your grasp. As a matter of fact, the only person it's dependent upon is you. Whatever challenge,issue or problem that you are dealing with, you can get closer to a solution or you can solve it by using design thinking.

Emily and Matt describe their design process here, as well as the steps that they include in design thinking. At this time we are using the Stanford d-school's document to learn about design thinking, but you can easily see how Studio H's follows a similar, and probably easier to understand, process.